Reports of the Inspectors of Mines of the anthracite and bituminous ...

96 Reports of the Inspectors of Mines. [Off. Doc.
Pa. 243. Between the years 1870 and 1890, the annual production of
anthracite coal was more than doubled As the business has grown the
dangers have increased, but so also have the knowledge and ability to
cope with them grown. Nevertheless, the official reports of the mine
Inspectors show that in the year 1890, there were one thousand and
sixty-six persons injured in the anthracite coal mines of the state, and
two hundred and seventy-five killed. It cannot be said, nor is it contended
here, that a business in which so large a portion of the public is
employed and is fraught with so much danger, is beyond the power of
the legislature to regulate. " Generally it is for the legislature to determine
what laws and regulations are needed to protect the public
health and secure the public comfort and safety, and when its measures
are calculated, intended, convenient and appropriate to accomplish
these ends, the exercise of its discretion is not subject to review by the
courts. But they must have some relation to these ends." Jacobs Case,
98 N. Y. 98. The act of 1891 is in the same line as the acts of 1870 and
1885, and is the product of the knowledge gained by the experience and
investigation of the twenty-one years that have elapsed since it became
apparent to all that the subject was one which warranted and imperatively
demanded the exercise of the police power of the state. The
provision under consideration clearly relates to, and is manifestly calcu-
lated to secure the safety of the large body of men employed in the
mines, and the legislature could have had no other purpose in passing
it. Possibly men may differ as to the expediency of the measure, but
no one can say that it is an unwarranted invasion of private rights, for
an ulterior purpose, under the guise of a police regulation. The power
of the legislature to make the law being clear, the question whether the
court has discretionary power to set it aside or refuse to enforce it in
a particular instance, because, in the opinion of witnesses, it is an unnecessary
regulation in that case, is free from difficulty. If that power
is usurped by the courts in one case the statute will cease to be a rule
of action and become merely a legislative expression of opinion which a
co-ordinate branch of the g-overnment may respect or not, as it thinks
fit. In construing- the provisions of the act of 1870 relating to the
duties of mine foremen we had occasion to say: "By this we mean that
he cannot say that the necessities of the particular mine, or of the particular
occasion, do not require him to perform things required of him
by the statute. This statute is supposed to express the legislative
wisdom of the state ; to express what was necessary and best to secure
the ventilation of the mines and the security of the men who work under
the ground; and we repeat that the mining boss must perform the
duties imposed on him by statute, and has no right to set up his private
judgment against that of the legislature and to say that it is not neces-
sary for him to perform them, or that he has power to perform them in
some other way. If he fails to perform them he is guilty of negligence